Compassion

I was listening to Jo Dunning, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, the other day and she said something that really grabbed my attention.

She was talking about the experiences in our lives that either seem to stay, no matter what we try to do to move past them, or experiences that keep occurring over and over again.  She said that if we can move past judgment, and instead move to loving acceptance of something we don't like, then we can "complete the lesson" and move on.

It caught my attention because I have often wondered why something continued to occur over and over again in my life and in the lives of some of my clients.  For me, I always assumed I wasn't getting the "lesson" I was supposed to get and would often wrack my brain trying to figure out what I was supposed to be learning.

Jo said the key was to find a way to stop judging and blaming and look at the situation with compassion, because when we judge something we're saying, "I don't have compassion for that."  Each time we judge something (whether in ourselves or another person), it comes back to us to experience it again so we can develop compassion for it.  When we are able to get to the point where we have compassion for an experience, then it is free to move on and the lesson is complete.

Within hours of listening to Jo speak about this, I got together with a friend who was telling me about something she has been trying to overcome for years, with little success.  When I shared what I had just learned from Jo, we were able to quickly see that she had continued to judge herself for the very experience she kept having.  We laughed about the possibility that it really could be that easy to complete a learning, because so many of us are stuck in the belief that it requires hard work and a lot of struggle.  She agreed to try having more compassion for herself and less judgment, and she promised to keep me posted on what she noticed in the coming weeks.

One of the other things Jo said was to pay attention to what we think about before we fall asleep at night.  She said that our thoughts are "downloaded," to use a computer phrase, while we sleep.   If we are focusing on the things we don't like in our lives or the frustrations of the day that we experienced, our thoughts continue to stay on that track while we sleep, and then we manifest more experiences that are frustrating and unwanted.  She said it can be as easy as just focusing on things that you love (whether it's a child or a pet or a pleasant experience you had) before you fall asleep at night.  Then those loving, positive thoughts will be the things that get "downloaded" while you sleep.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if shifting the experiences we have here on earth could be that easy?  Give it a try and let me know what happens.   I would love to hear!